Home > Consumer Reviews > Adaptec USB 2.0/1394 Combo Card PCI 3-Port USB 2.0 & 2-Port Firewire MAC/PC (1923200)

I had zero issues installing this card and using both the USB2 and the Firewire. I am using the firewire to capture miniDV from my camera directly to a drive connected to the USB2 on the same card. No issues, this is great. My PC is a Dell Dimension 8200 running XP Pro, I also updated my BIOS and OS before installing the card. The software that ships with the card is odd. It came with a disk with quicktime and acrobat or something like that, but no drivers. Windows used its drivers and the card works fine. Well worth the $ for no headaches.

Easy to install and the information it shows about your usb plug in is great.

Excellent way to add USB 2.0 and Firewire to your set up. Works as advertised and, most importantly, it works flawlessly with the 2.6 series Linux kernel. Linux supports ohci, uhci, and ehci on the USB side and also supports firewire. Easy to install, too.


A convenient way to upgrade your computer to today's technology!

I purchased the Adaptec AUA-3230 DuoConnect card at my local retailer for use with my "Quicksilver" model Power Mac G4 (Dual 1GHz). My built-in ports had gone flakey so I wanted a quality PCI expansion card to replace their functionality. Adaptec used to make some of the fastest SCSI cards around, so I decided to give their product a try. I picked the DuoConnect so I could get some USB 2.0 ports while I was at it.

Well, it's very fast -- when copying between internal and external devices, it is faster than Apple's built-in FireWire was! Unfortunately, it has problems -- of the crashing sort. When a firewire device is connected and the Mac is put to sleep, it doesn't make it to Deep Sleep mode (fans keep running), and wakes up again. (This happened with both a bus-powered iPod and a self-powered LaCie d2 drive. The LaCie showed truly strange behavior of spinning down, then up, then down, six times in a row before finally stopping!) The only way out is to turn the Mac off. I contacted Adaptec tech support via their web page.

After a brief of confusion in which they thought I was using USB devices, Adaptec support tested the configuration themselves, confirmed the problem, and suggested that I either disable Sleep mode, or return the card to the retailer from which I purchased it. Following are their own words:

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In our unofficial testing of the Firewire 4300 and DuoConnect AUA-3121 and AUA-3020, it seems that the controller itself is compatible with Deep Sleep. Yet as soon as any devices are attached to either the USB or FireWire/1394 ports, the system will not be able to recover from the Deep Sleep function.

It appears that this issue is due more to the PCI bus itself rather than to the DuoConnect adapter. When Deep Sleep is initiated, the PCI bus and attached peripherals will be powered down. Yet because the PCI controller is not directly powered from the motherboard, there is no way to send a signal to the attached devices to 'wake' them. This means that a signal can be sent to the attached devices to put them into a power down status, but no signal can be sent to revive them from that state. For that reason the Firewire and DuoConnect card is not fully compliant with Apple's Deep Sleep.

What you may want to do at this point is to open up the Energy Saver control panel and set the power settings to "never" to disable Sleep. Yet if this is not an option, then unfortunately there is no workaround for this issue and you may want to return the controller to the place of purchase for a refund.

We apologize for the delay in getting this information to you. It did take some time to replicate the issue and search for a possible solution. We hope that you understand.
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So, in summary: very fast FireWire 400/USB 2.0 card, but useless if your Power Mac ever sleeps. Adaptec's tech support was prompt and didn't send me "form letter" style replies, so props for that! I'll try Adaptec again in the future due to their support team (it's also why I give this card 2 stars instead of just 1), but I'll always beware and make sure there is a good return policy, just in case.

After shopping around for a Firwire card I finally found this huge deal! 3-Port USB and 2-Port Firewire for only $19.99! DO NOT pay full price for this item. Go to the used and new, there is a new one for $19.99. It takes a little longer to ship out, but this is a great deal.

This item takes about 3 secs to install with XP...all you do is put it in, and you're ready. I was up burning dvds within 5 mins.